1914 



BY 
C. W. 




HARPER &• BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 



1914 



BY 
C. W. 




HARPER 6- BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 



7? 



w* 



COPYRIGHT, 1814. BY CHARLES WALDSTEIN 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

s tf 28 (9/4 

©CUH79728 



PREFACE 

This poem is one of a series which the writer 
has produced annually on the birthday of his 
wife. They were meant entirely and exclusively 
to be seen only by the inner family circle. On 
the present occasion, however, the subject dealt 
with seems of wider interest. His offer of active 
service for his country being rejected, on account 
of his advanced years, and not being able to turn 
his thoughts away from the tragic events of the 
day, he has put, in a more or less poetic form, 
his own thoughts on the circumstances which 
led to this war and the consequences it may and 
ought to have. He therefore decided to publish 
the poem and, with the generous concurrence of 
his publisher, to devote the profits to the National 
Relief Fund. 



TO F. W.-AUGUST 17, 1914 



No joyous peals the N . . . church bells ring 
To mark the gladsome day when thou wert born, 

No song of praise that angel choirs might sing 
To greet the sun on this propitious morn. 

The tocsin wild hath made the church tower rock, 
Calling the warriors with blood-thirsting arms 

In rush courageous round their flag to flock, 
To fight for hearths and homes, their towns 
and farms. 

The whole world rings with shrieks of rage and hate ; 

The nations that erst led the van of light 
And spread the gospel of Christ's love now sate 

Their greed of envy and their thirst of might. 

Thought, justice, love, and all the guiding reins, 

That tamed the man-beast to the course of right, 

Are snapped and tattered, and his swollen veins 

With blood, blood-thirsting, blind all human 

sight. 

l 



He sees no right, no good, no grace nor truth; 

No love or pity even for human kind — 
The cruel beasts feel neither love nor ruth, 

Hunger and lust o'ersway their heart and mind. 

'Tis but a moon in London town our girls, 
Passing the threshold of their childhood's 
days, 

Frolicked in ball-rooms mid the merry whirls, 
Or heard in rapture the melodious lays. 

To-day there's slaughter of our manhood's best: 
In fratricidal strife the brave are slain, 

Fathers and sons by wives and mothers blest — 
All side by side in unknown graves are lain. 

And why this slaughter of the best, oh why, 
Should man destroy those friends in passion 
wild, 

Who bore the flame of Hellas' 1 torches high 
And held Judaea's tablets undefiled? 

Who hath this madness o'er the sane world sent, 
Thrusting high man below the lowest beast — 

Cruel and crafty, thought with passion blent, 
Turning creation's foremost to the least? 



1 The allusion here made is to the two main elements which 
make up modern occidental civilisation. These, according to 
Matthew Arnold, are Hellenism and Hebraism; the civilisation 
of the ancient Greeks and the moral standards of the Hebrew 
race as chiefly embodied in the teachings of Christ. The Ger- 
man poet Heine has also suggested this twofold division, when 
he says: 

"The contrasts here discordantly are paired, 
The Greeks' delight, Judaea's thought of God." 
2 



How came this evil mania o'er the world? 

Who, from mephitic hell, threw forth the 
brand, 
Wantonly o'er the peaceful nations hurled, — 

The destinies of millions from one hand? 

Tell me, oh thou inspired lyric thought, 

Thou thoughtful mover of the attuned heart, 

Sibyl and Muse harmoniously wrought 
Into prophetic wisdom, truth impart! 



II 



The Teuton Caesar, with impetuous mind, un- 
hinged 

By every new thought half matured, and quick 
to feel 

The sting of passion, love and hate, both gener- 
ous and mean 

In spirit and in scope, though strong, could not 
subdue 

The foremost passion, least controlled by rea- 
son's check, 

Which saps the root of thought and rules, unseen 

E'en by the sentient conscious self of man — 
vague fear. 

Thus brave Napoleon — he that knew no fear of 
man — 

Was erst unstrung when Enghien l fell by mur- 
d'rous hand. 

When Austria's ruler — he that was to be, when 
once 

1 The Due d'Enghien was carried from Germany to Vincennes, 
and was arraigned before a military commission and shot on 
Napoleon's order in 1804. The plots against his life in which 
Bourbon princes, notably the Due d'Artois, were concerned had 
undoubtedly unhinged the fearless Napoleon to such a degree 
that he committed this crime. 

4 



The aged scion of the Hapsburg house, who 

ruled 
For threescore years of saddest life around his 

hearth, 
And in his land in twilight of benighted feudal 

sway, 
Had died and joined the shades of his ancestral 

peers — 
When he that was to be was foully slain beside 

his spouse 
By murd'rous hand of Slav to free Slavonic 

slaves, 
Then Teuton Csesar feared in his courageous heart 
And knew not that he feared. He cried: "Who 

dares to slay 
The anointed head of State. No ship of State 

secure 
Without the god-sent helmsman — such as I," he 

said. 
Who knew but that the murd'rous hand was led 

and sped 
By those in Austria's land who feared the rule 

of him 
Who proved the Caesar's kindred-hearted friend, 

at one 
In all his hopes of Teuton's rule supreme, o'er 

land 
And sea, in Europe and in all dependencies, 
Bringing from distant hemispheres in gold or 

goods 
Their harvest thus to swell the German rule of 

might ! 
How long would hold the ties of kindred friends 

in arms? 

5 



And now, 'twas Russia stood to shield the homi- 
cide — 

Russia the Slav, the champion of Slavonic slaves. 

Russia the branded front of all autocracies, 

The marked and hated foe of all the hungering 
poor, 

That cried for bread and for the trampled rights 
of man! 

To fix the war-guilt on this foremost foe of all, 

In every land where free there ruled the labour- 
ing-man, 

Would daunt the revolting spirit of the friends 
of peace 

Within his realm, would win them to his side, 
allies, 

For once in all these years, with those who strove 
for war, 

Who lived by war, and held their privileged 
ease by war. 

A war with France or England, who were known 
by all 

The freedom-loving Germans as the foes supreme 

Of tyranny and all that robbed the working- 
man 

Of his fair share of liberty, would be opposed 

By half the German manhood in the Kaiser's 
realm. 

Nor would faint-hearted Austria lend her helping 
hand. 

But all would join in arms against the Russian 

host, 
And fight in turn all those who stood beside the 

Tsar. 

6 



"Then strike, the hour has come, the iron is hot 

and soft! 
Delay not or our foes will be too strong," he 

cried. 
"Strike quick and sharp and bold, I, William, 

lead your hosts! 
In two more years the Russian arms will be too 

strong. 
Strike e'er they reach the manhood of their 

growing strength; 
Since measured are the sources of our wealth 

and force!" 

He knew, or thought he knew, by school-boy 

counsellors led, 
Who served him ill in missions through the for- 
eign lands, 
That Frankish soldiers had nor food nor clothes 

nor arms 
To meet the advancing foe, were swiftly he to 

strike ; 
That England's kingdom riven was and torn in 

strife, — 
Perfidious Albion, loving nought but gain, would 

break 
Her plighted troth to allies true and free, would 

stand 
With folded hands to see her Gallic friends o'er- 

thrown 
And helpless Flanders hold the torch for blood's 

debauch. 

"Strike, 'tis the hour, the Teuton now will rule 
the world!" 

7 



And Hermes Kairos l with Oneiros 2 stood to 

urge 
The fear-distracted brain of the impetuous one, 

to seize 
The forelock of the fleeting day propitious. 

" Strike now or ne'er, All Deutschland, Deulsch- 
land tiber All!" 3 

Thus he resolved to acts begotten of the day. 

Yet years of reasoned purpose, grounded on the 
soil 

Of thought far-sighted on the nation's growth 
and fate — 

Its final fate within the strife of envious states, 

Of Europe's nations for the conquest of the 
world — 

This reasoned soil prepared the growth of mush- 
room seed, 

Of his impetuous will, forced by the Servian 
crime. 

1 The ancient god of Luck, of Gamblers. 

2 The god of dreams. 

3 The alldeutsche Partei has as its ultimate aim and ideal the 
dominance of the Germanic race over the whole world. It cor- 
responds to the extreme Pan-Slavist party which has the same 
aspirations as regards the Slavs. ''Deutschland uber Alles" 
(Germany over all) is a national German song and war-cry. 



Ill 



The age from whose strong womb the modern 

man was born 
Had turned man's genius to convert the latent 

powers 
Of nature, hidden in the bowels of the earth 
And on its surface even to the heights of air, 
To sate his hunger and to slake his thirst, as well 
Of body and of mind and bring luxurious ease, 
To compass his desires for joy and wealth and 

power, 
But chief for all his needs which matter can 

produce. 
Inventions bold, far-reaching in result, that save 
Hard labour's sweat, and thus increasing million- 
fold 
The things he craves for use and ease and luxury. 
Fast grew his factories in towns and country- 
side, 
Nay, by inventive skill he made the ploughman's 

task 
So light, that one man ploughs where hundred 

ploughed before, 
And reaps the rich and easy harvest thousand- 
fold. 

9 



And more: by bridling heat and steam, electric 

force, 
He sends these varied goods by lightning flash 

of speed, 
Wherever need attracts the thing produced, and 

all 
Glutted his greed for wealth amassed and grow- 
ing power. 
Within each land to him who used this craft of 

power 
There came great wealth inordinate, while the 

toilers' mass 
Remained the serfs of old with scanty share of 

gold. 
But men collective — those in nations grouped 

and bound — 
Endured no change of form within this rapid 

change. 
The national unit, which we call the modern 

state, 
Was unaffected by this turn of time and men, 
Retained its form and garb and mould of ancient 

days, 
Called Race and Faith and Class and Ruling 

Powers Divine, 
And links fortuitous of space and land, and e'en 
The village tower spurious beacon light for man, 
For modern man who rules the universal powers 
Of earth and sea and air, which all proclaim aloud 
The brotherhood of man. Yet in each state so 

fixed, 
Expanding in its need and in its force and hopes, 
The modern men thus bred and nurtured in 

their strength 

10 



O'erflowed in numbers, growing year by year, 
until 

They jostled each within their native home, and 
found 

No scope for their compressed energies and 
strength. 

And thus the national life o'erflowed to foreign 
parts, 

The distant colonies where younger states re- 
tained 

Their filial oneness with the parent state and 
home. 

Thus France and England, even Europe's lesser 
lands, 

Possessed descendant states and thither sent 
their sons, 

Who all proclaimed their fealty to their mother 
home. 

But Germany, of all the states who proved most 
strong 

In growth of sons and of this moulding power of 
life, 

Had, by the chance of history's course, too late 
arrived 

For the partition of the distant world, to found 

The offspring states which shelter gave and new- 
found homes 

To its vast multitude of healthy starving sons. 

And if they left their homes, the foreign land 
absorbed 

Those sons, for ever lost to their own fatherland. 

No regions where their energies could thus ex- 
pand 

And peacefully secure continuous scope abroad 

11 



For growing Teuton energy and skill and thought. 

Yet, worst of all, their land that suffered fire and 
sword 

In centuries of sacrifice for freedom's boon, 

So that the Teuton flag should freely float on 
high, 

Was threatened from the East to lose its place 
and lead 

In Europe, central home of human cultured life; 

Until the Teuton would be crushed by Slavic 
hordes 

Who snatched from Teuton hands the fair per- 
ennial torch, 

The light Judsean and of Hellas, 1 both combined. 

This brutal massing strength of Russia's grow- 
ing hordes 

Must, were time given, surely overwhelm and 
crush 

His German neighbour in his senseless conquests 
sweep. 

"Then strike at once before the Russian Jugger- 
naut 

Crushes beneath his onward rushing wheels your 
homes! 

Within your own land there are those who deem 
and feel 

That states no more should sever human brother- 
hood, 

That race and faith combine or they are nought 
and false. 

The brotherhood of man by justice and by 
thought, 

1 See footnote page 2. 
12 



By wealth accumulate and labour organised, 
Is one, nor will it brook in coming days not far 
That Slav or Teuton slay his brother man in war. 
The day is near when they will stay the hand 

of war 
And, by the engines of their peaceful toil, will 

blunt 
The fratricidal sword to slay the nation's foe. 
And antiquated war, which blind philosophers 
Uphold as part essential in the 'social beast/ 
Will vanish from the historic page of future man, 
Of man who lives this day, so soon the goal is 

reached. 
If war be banished within mortal's span of days, 
And all the lands remain as now by fate or- 
dained — 
The status quo, by state-craft jugglers it is called — l 
Germania's future claim, the stepchild 'mong 

the states, 
To grow and prosper with her sons in distant lands, 
Will lose for ever her identity, her name, 
Will then be blotted from the page of history. 
So strike before the pacifists can sap the force 
From national heart and national veins and thews 

and arms, 
Strike for the glory of your past and future fame, 
Strike while your thought and all your trained 

skill and force 
Have made you stronger than your foes who 

block the way!" 

1 The status quo is used in diplomacy when, either in peaceful 
diplomatic discussions or in war, it is desired to insist upon the 
actual possessions in land and colonies or acknowledged interests 
held by each state before such discussions of wars. 

13 



Thus spake the thinkers whose deep thought had 

stopped and failed 
To see: that future states will need a future 

garb; 
Not race supposed or sect of narrow faith that 

errs; 
That, loving those who nestle to our hearts and 

live 
Within our native land and share our father's 

past, 
We need not hate our brother man who lives 

afar; 
That human brotherhood, which Christ pro- 
claimed of old, 
Is strongest of all ties — the purpose ultimate. 



14 



EPILOGUE 

Now, thou fair Sibyl and thou fairer Muse, 

Lend me thy wisdom and thy grace of form, 

To penetrate the maze of tangled facts, 

And win the vision of the future days, 

In truth poetic — as the unknown past, 

The inspired seer of the Ring and the Book l 

Proclaimed in truth, and thus dispelled all lies, 

Which clung like weeds around the tragic fate 

Of two pure lovers centuries ago 

In Tuscan gardens, Umbria and Rome. 

Inspire me to see and to record, 

In words untrammelled by the selfish good 

Of mine own hearth and mine own nation's 

cause; 
But for the united cause of human kind— 

1 In his great poem "The Ring and the Book," Robert Brown- 
ing formulates his theory of poetic truth, truth strengthened 
and made whole through poetic imagination which fuses into 
life all the disjointed facts of ordinary apprehension. The story 
of two lovers which led to murders and to the trial of a young 
priest in Italy in the 18th century was presented to him in a 
book, partly in print, partly in manuscript, containing lengthy 
and confused accounts of the law-suit, which leaves the reader 
quite confused and unable to discover the real truth. The 
imagination of the poet restores the actual past back to life by 
giving consistent form to these isolated facts. 

15 



Those living now, and, still more potent yet, 
Of future man approaching the idea 
Of perfect man, a fitting part attuned 
To universal Good and True and Fair, 
To harmony of Beauty, Truth and Good, 
Which makes the world of worlds beyond this 

globe, 
Infinitude of Goodness — which is God. 
Teach me to see what causes will result, 
To the one Cause of universal Good, 
Should victory be won by Teuton arms, 
Or should the allied strength of Frankish men 
With England's and with Russia's might prevail? 



1. SHOULD GERMANY BE VICTORIOUS 

With self -pleased confidence the German scribes, 
Historians and soldiers both combined, 
Proclaim pre-eminence for the "Kulttir" J 
Unknowing or ignoring all that made 
The Western civilization, chiefly formed 
By Italy and France and Albion's folk — 
Not in the past alone, but nursed to-day 
Into the fairest flower of human growth. 
We gladly grant that Germany has borne 
A mighty share in thought and art and wealth, 
Which lead us onward in the march of power, 
And may advance the common weal of all, 
If well directed towards the higher goals. 
The giant man of genius, manhood's van, — 
Whom from each nation mankind doth absorb 
Into the world — his almost cosmic powers, 
Which mark the onward progress of the world — 
The Teuton has produced, as others have, 
And they shine forth as luminary stars. 
But surely not above the average 
Of all the cultured nations of the world! 

1 The German word for culture which German Chauvinists 
bring forward as if theirs were undoubtedly highest of all, and 
justifying their claim to predominance in the world. 

17 



Music and science and philosophy 

The Teuton loved and blessed the nations all. 

The olden days of Bach and Beethoven, 

Of Mozart, Schubert, Schumann — all resound 

In harmony sublime, and thrill the ears 

And hearts of raptured men; until they gave 

Dramatic Wagner and the lyric Brahms. 

In science too within our newborn age, 

Among the scores of great men who have toiled 

For the advance of knowledge, there stand forth 

Virchow and Helmholtz, Behrens, Koch and 

Gauss. 
These almost led the thought of modern times 
As English Darwin and French Pasteur led, 
And as the many heirs supreme that live 
In France and England of great Newton's fame. 
No primateship the German land can claim 
In modern science and in modern thought. 



Their greatest feats were in the age before, 
When high there surged the philosophic wave, 
Crested by Kant, 1 of Scottish parentage, 
And in the broadling swirl by thinkers great, 
Fichte and Leibnitz, Schelling, Hegel too. 2 
This philosophic bloom of deepest thought, 
That maketh for the ultimate, has sown 
The seed in Germany that bears the fruit 
Of width and thoroughness which underlie 
Their true success in every walk of life. 



1 A great German philosopher of the 18th century. He was 
of Scottish origin. 

2 German philosophers of the 18th and early 19th centuries. 

18 



— Tis so the Talmud * and religious lore 

For ever studied by the poorest Jew, 

And themes religious in the poorest hut 

Of Scotland, wrangled with profoundest zest, 

Have steeled the Scot and Jew for nature's strife. — 

The keynote thus is struck for all that's taught 

By highest thought above, and niters down 

In due succession to the village school. 

This made a network of then teaching craft 

To penetrate with thoroughness all their life; 

This gave them strength to struggle with the world 

In trade and commerce and — alas! — in arms; 

While other nations on their bended knee 

Have worshipped the unthinking golden calf 

Of thought empirical: this hopes to rise 

From lowly needs that reach the unthinking mass, 

With narrow eye and vision dull and blurred, 

That see but what the fleeting moment feels; 

Yet never will it upward soar and rise 

To truth that rules and thought that penetrates 

In lasting strength the wholeness of our life. 

The Thoroughness which caused this highest life 

To spread throughout the German fatherland, 

Has trained the multitudes to realise 

The worth material of spirit things, 

Of art and letters, science, thought abstract. 

And, dotted o'er the land in every part, 
From capital to distant border town, 

1 The Talmud, one of the religious and philosophic books of 
great length, very intricate and difficult to understand, which 
the Jews for many centuries have studied regularly every week, 
not only the rabbis and learned meD, but even those following 
the humblest walks of life. 

19 



They have the centres of this higher life 

In higher learning and artistic scope. 

Had not the petty princes numberless 

Created thus the local homes dispersed, 

The smaller centres of enlightened life, 

Which other nations only now possess 

In their metropolis, the German folk 

Would never have been subject to this rule 

Of highest thought and thoroughness supreme. 

This is the legacy of their sad past 

When petty princes, even townships, ruled 

A disunited realm, devoid of strength 

To win for Germany a place supreme, 

The peer of other nations and their rule 

Of colonies in distant regions wide. 

And when this thoroughness of thought and work 

Are turned to art and craft and warlike needs, 

It is through this that victory may come 

And not from courage nor from fighting force. 

'Tis Kant who won their battles and will win! 

Meanwhile, the spirit of the warlike drill 
Has nipped the flower of culture e'er it grew, 
Which, turned to matter, lost its spirit bloom, 
And all idealism, which they vaunt 
As being German — once it was! — is dead; 
Has flown from Teuton lands these many years, 
Degraded German culture to the plain 
Where matter rules, and calculated thought 
Of gain material — the only ultimate. 

In Shakespeare's land, with the unbroken chain 
Of thinkers and of poets, there have lived, 
Byron and Shelley, Keats and Browning too; 

20 



Great painters vying in their grace of art 
With foremost Frankish art for hundred years. 
The sense of beauty, filtered through our land 
Into each home, has firmer grip and hold 
Of this industrial nation, not aware 
Of its own virtue in humility, 
Than in the width and breadth of Teuton lands. 
And France still leads, and will for many years, 
The world of beauty and of taste supreme, 
In highest art and lowest craftsman's work. 

Yet more than this, the German sabre-clash 

And its low spirit of the brutal might, 

Have there destroyed the highest of all arts, 

The art of living and of social grace, 

The ultimate expression of the rule 

Of cultured nations living cultured lives. 

The soldier's spirit has destroyed the life 

Of what once made the chivalry of old, 

And now's the gentleman, the ruling type, 

Who guides the thoughts and acts of every man 

And glorifies our modern struggling race. 

The Germans from the days when Goethe l sang 
And Moses Mendelssohn of gentle soul 2 
Have haply left their heirs. But few they are,— 
O'erswayed by sabre-clashing, coarsened men, 
Who rule the land and set the rule for all. 
And they have made this Germany of old 
The most materialised of living folk, 

Germany's greatest poet, born 1749+1844. 

2 Philosopher and writer, born 1729 + 1786. Grandfather of 
the musician, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, a friend of the poet 
Leasing, and taken by him as the model of Nathan in the drama 
"Nathan the Wise." 

21 



Who care for nought but power and wealth and gain, 

And, mouthing of ideals and of "Kultur" 

In insincerity, do loud proclaim 

The cynic's faith: that power is the goal, 

The only goal, for manly men to win. 

Woe to the world if Germans win the day! 

With power drunken, nought will stop the rush 

For greater power o'er the world at large; 

And gentle arts and spirits kind will die. 

This is the curse of powers once begot: 

That, breeding on, nought but the lust of power, 

Destroying all, they in their turn beget. 1 

Had Alsace and Lorraine been left to France 

The history of ages would have turned 

To blessings for the cultured world. 

Should German victory crown this godless war, 

The free possessions of the cultured states 

Will then be wrung from their paternal care, 

Until the western barriers of Monroe, 

The glorious land for freedom won and held 

By Washington, the gentle hero strong, 

And Lincoln's simple genius, wise and good, 

Will last be ravaged by the Vandal hordes. 

But all these sons down-trodden for the time, 

Will rise and never cease from endless strife 

Beneath the heel of Teuton conquerors; 

And endless wars, for ages still to come, 

Of nations checked in their ideal course, 

Will blight all hope of peace for hundred years. 

1 A paraphrase of the German poet Schiller's lines: 
"Das eben ist der Fluch der bosen that, 
Dass sie, fortzeugend, immer Boses muss gebaren" 
This is the curse of every evil deed, 
That propagating still, it brings forth evil. 

(Translated by Coleridge). 



2. SHOULD THE ALLIES BE VICTORIOUS 

If France and England, backed by Russia's 

might, 
Should win the day and check the Kaiser's hosts, 
That blight the peace for all the western world, 
Tell me, O thou far-sighted friendly Muse, 
The final issue of this mighty enterprise? 

The one great end supreme will be attained: 
For evermore the cultured ruling states 
Will banish war for ever from the page 
Of history and life that's civilised. 
And not the dreamers and those doctrine bound 
Will thus dispel the fiend of man and god; 
But all the people toiling for their bread, 
Foremost the German workers, who will cast 
The yoke of tyrant soldiers from their neck. 
They then will know of facts the language clear 
Which does impart beyond mere words and 

thoughts 
What death and wounds and miseries will tell, 
The starving women and the infant babes, 
The burning houses and the fields forlorn, 
With hungering hatreds left to sweep like pests 
Throughout the land in desolation spread. 

23 



" Enough of this," they'll cry, "why should we 

slay 
Our brother man and starve our wife and child?" 
And why expend the hard-won millions, gained 
Through our own toil, to lead to war and death, 
When they would help to ease the suffering mass? 
One-hundred-thousandth part you fling away 
Upon destruction's craft, would bring to light 
The engines of our progress, speeding on 
The halting nations to their higher life. 
Why slay our brother 'cross the briny sea, 
Our neighbour living by the unseen line 
Imaginary, which the statesman calls 
The boundary 'twixt nations who are foes? 
Because we are one race? — which we are not — 
From Kaiser to the clown no Teuton lives; 
Half Slav, half Teuton is the Prussian state, 
And every state has races manifold. 
And were each state one racial entity 
Of purest blood, untainted by alloy, 
Should therefore we in hatred hunt .and slay 
Our fellow-worker of another race? 
No fighting dog would bite another dog 
Because he cometh from another breed. 
Because we have one faith? It is not true. 
No two men feel alike when prayer steals 
Into their heart and they're alone with God. 
And if it were, and all professed alike 
The faith of Christ which teacheth love of men, 
How can we slay our brother and be blessed? 
"Enough of this," they'll cry, the millions all, 
"The rule of hell is over, now for God! 
We'll live and work in peace and love our hearth, 
First nearest to our hearts, and our dear land 

24 



In which we live and where our mother tongue 
Proclaims our love of neighbours near and far 
Who feel as we do and whose life is ours. 
With Germany and France and England thus, 
And brave Columbia o'er the western main, 
United in this blood-stained shroud of war 
More strongly than by all their nation's flags, 
One army and one nation they will form 
To check the onslaught of all foes of man — 
And peace will reign supreme o'er land and sea." 

But thou, O England, this remember well: 
Tis not the German race thy sword doth slay, 
Thy vanquished foes are those who made the war 
And those who threaten peace throughout the 

world. 
The savage eagle must be brought to fall. 
WV11 pluck his wings so that he soar no more 
As bird of prey throughout the limpid skies. 
We'll make the air secure for doves of peace. 
Beware thy dove of peace take not the shape 
And essence of the savage eagle's flight, — 
Nay, worse than this, the vulture, carrion-crow, 
Who feed on weaklings or where life has fled. 
We have no lust to wreak our vengeance blind 
On German workers and their leading thought, 
To wreck their homes and sap their strength of 

life, 
Of private use or of the nation's wealth. 
The world can never spare their helping hand, 
Outstretched to join the hands of noble men, 
Teuton and British, Frankish, even Slav, 
To draw mankind to summits high aloft, 
The destiny of human brotherhood. 

25 



His thought and spirit never can be quenched, 
Though all the world were trampling on the corpse 
Of his best manhood slain on battle-field. 
The day would come that corpse and shrivelled 

bones 
Would, with the touch of spirit, rise to life 
To be the foe where friend it ought to be. 
Our generous wisdom ought to stay our hand 
That strives to rob them of the little gain, 
Which in late years by struggle they achieved 
In distant lands, their small dependencies. 
Drive not their struggling multitudes to waste 
In their constricted home in idle need, 
But freely let them wander through the world 
And show their strength, the strength they have 

to win. 
And our own foster-children, far outspread 
Beyond the seas where free they live, untamed 
By tyranny of senseless fathers' rule, 
Will open wide their gates to all who come 
From every land and every race and creed. 
They'll keep for us, what never can be lost, 
The love and reverence of common blood, 
Our common past, our piety for this, 
Our future hopes and our ideals high. 
Then shall be swept from all the paths and ways 
That lead the nations onward all in peace, 
What e'er injustice casts before our way. 
And our own wealth and colonies and friends 
Will not incite the envy and the hate 
Which sure, though late, will lead to strife and 

war. 
And what we do the other nations all 
Will follow by strong justice' might constrained. 

26 



And even Russia will forsake the curse 

Of her blind faith and of tradition's chain, 

Which drags her on to conquest without end; 

Until the spirit of that gentle race 

Will rise by teaching of all higher thoughts 

To justify the freedom which they crave. 

The open door, the open door for all! 
This is the watchword for our future days. 



